Cannot Be Unseen

 

8/6/26 photo reference

In addition to feeling oppressive, our days of unhealthy, smoke-filled skies were frustrating: What a waste of otherwise excellent sketching weather! During an abbreviated morning walk, wishing I could linger for a sketch, I snapped a quick photo of a stunning yellow-green tree. My intention was to sketch from the photo the same day: Maybe the immediacy would help me feel more like I had sketched it from life.

That didn’t work; I still felt like I was just sketching from a photo. Nonetheless, I enjoyed trying to capture the crown’s volume and that brilliant color. Although it wasn’t a conscious choice, I noted afterwards that the Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook’s off-white paper captured the day’s smoky yellow light.

It was when I was putting the sketchbook on my scanner that I saw it: The tree was a green man’s profile. Auugghh!! Once seen, it cannot be unseen.

Doomscrolling Prevention Progress Report

 

2/16/26 (photo reference; Derwent Drawing
pencil, S&B Zeta sketchbook)

2/16/26 (same photo reference as the sketch at left;
Derwent Inktense Blocks, Caran d'Ache Neocolor II,
Museum Aquarelle pencil, S&B Delta sketchbook)

I’m not always successful, but I’ve cut back significantly on my doomscrolling since I started making a concerted effort to stop about a month ago. Although I’ve never been a fan of sketching from photos, I do find it relaxing and fun to “practice” urban sketching by using reference photos of ordinary neighborhood scenes that I enjoy sketching from life. The mixed-media attempts at home are what encouraged me to find a way to use water-soluble waxed pastels more on location (and now that I’ve found a practical way to carry them, I’m looking forward to using them more).

I’m less likely to use dry colored pencils on location, mainly due to the additional time they take, but now that I’ve done it a bit, I want to keep trying. In the meantime, the monochrome sketches I’m making at home are the most soothing and relaxing of all. Without color, they require less thinking than mixed media, and not having to change materials gives them an uninterrupted, meditative quality.

2/7/26 (photo reference; Derwent Drawing pencil, Zeta sketchbook)

The last sketch shown below was an unintended discovery about different types of pencils. Recalling the series of sketches I had made years ago with a blue/vermillion bicolor pencil, I suddenly got in the mood to do it again with a photo reference. Digging through my doomscrolling prevention mixed-media kit, I found an Ink Blue Derwent Drawing pencil and an orange Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle.

2/18/26 (photo reference; Derwent Drawing and Museum Aquarelle pencils, Zeta sketchbook)

I typically wouldn’t mix a non-soluble and a water-soluble colored pencil this way (though there’s no reason not to). Used concurrently in the same sketch, I was a bit shocked to realize how scratchy the Museum Aquarelle felt compared to the Drawing! Until that moment, I never would have thought the Museum was anything but perfectly soft, smooth and creamy. Used alone, it still is, but this is what I’m talking about when I say that Drawing pencils are something special.

One Maple, Two Ways

 

2/12/26 reference photo (Caran d'Ache Neocolor II, Derwent Inktense Blocks, Derwent Drawing pencil)

Looking at these two sketches made from the same reference photo, you might guess that I made the monochrome one first as a values study, then executed the color version.

Actually, the path I took was less straightforward. Initially planning to make another fanciful tree character, I was searching through my folder of tree images for ideas. Before I could find the right trunk, I came upon this photo that I had taken a couple of summers ago. Despite the chunk taken out of the left side of its crown to accommodate power lines, this huge maple is glorious in the fall, and I’ve sketched it both from life and from photos (it’s a little precarious from life, as I have to stand on the traffic roundabout one block south to get this view). Yet I’ve probably never sketched it in the middle of summer when the foliage is green. Seeing this photo made me want to pull out some water-soluble materials.

After finishing the color version, I still wasn’t done: A monochrome study is satisfying in different ways. I pulled out a colored pencil for one more study.

2/12/26 photo reference (Derwent Drawing pencil)

Mixed Media: Water-Soluble and Not

 

2/2/26 photo reference (Derwent Drawing pencils, Neocolor II crayons, Museum Aquarelle pencils in S&B Delta sketchbook)

An interesting mixed-media result came about spontaneously the other evening (above). First I pre-selected an assortment of materials, including both non-soluble (Derwent Drawing pencils) and water-soluble ones (Caran d’Ache Neocolor II wax pastels, Museum Aquarelle pencils and Derwent Inktense Blocks). Thinking more about its value and mark-making potential than its hue or water-solubility, I started using a dark blue Drawing pencil to sketch the fence, tree trunks, utility pole and figure. Then I started using the water-soluble tools to scribble various foliage textures.

As I was scribbling, it suddenly occurred to me that I could use a trick I had tried briefly years ago in an intentional manner on location, but it had required too much planning to be tenable. Ironically, in the quiet comfort of my home, it happened spontaneously without any planning at all:

After drawing all the objects that I wanted to remain crisp in non-soluble pencil, I could easily spritz the entire page indiscriminately with water to activate the foliage. Voila – the other objects remained unblurred and sharp-edged! A pretty clever trick, if I do say so myself.

The sketch was made in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook, which is the ivory version of S&B Beta. (Like the old spiralbound Beta, this spiralbound Delta has sketches as far back as 2012. Again, like the Beta, I use it only at my desk, so it’s taking forever to fill. I’m determined to finish it off with doomscrolling prevention play.) After being spoiled by Hahnemühle 100 percent cotton paper the past several years, it was a rude surprise to see that the surface couldn’t take as much water without pooling.

The next day, I tried again (below), this time with intention. I switched to Hahnemühle because I’m used to how much water it can take. You can see that the car and tree trunks stayed sharp, while I activated the scribbly foliage in an organic way by spritzing. I wanted a more solid activation in the ground shadows, so I used a waterbrush to spread the water more evenly.

2/3/26 photo reference (Derwent Drawing pencils, Inktense Block, Neocolor II crayons in Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook)

A few days later, I went back to the Delta (below). I don’t like it, but as with any paper, the more I use it the better I’ll understand how much water it can tolerate.

2/7/26 photo reference (Drawing pencils, Neocolor II crayons, Museum Aquarelle pencils, S&B Delta sketchbook)

This is a fun way to use mixed media! Doing it on location is a different matter, but now I’m motivated to try it again.

Scratching the Mixed-Media Itch

 

1/31/26 photo reference (Inktense Blocks, Neocolor II crayons, Derwent Drawing pencil)

A funny thing happened on my way to doomscrolling prevention: I rekindled my love of mixed media! As much as I’ve wanted to explore mixed media in the past, it’s just not practical for me on location. About 10 years ago, I was using watercolors along with a variety of pens, markers, colored pencils and brush pens filled with my own ink mixes, and it was a lot to carry around. I clearly remember how much stuff I hauled around in Japan and France. Compared to my minimalist kit now, I’m amazed that I was willing to daily-carry all that, especially while traveling.

So far, I’m still not willing to carry everything I’d like to have on location, but my evening sketches from photos are scratching a latent mixed-media itch. They also raise a doubt: Would I even be able to make sketches like these on location? Even if I brought a stool (talk about a lot to haul – no way) or had a comfy bench, these all took quite a bit longer than I typically stay in one spot. I’ve made a few urban sketches with the addition of water-soluble crayons or blocks while standing, but it’s not ideal. I’d have to make fundamental changes in the way I prefer to sketch if I wanted to pursue mixed media on location.

Sketching is never quite as satisfying if I can’t do it in the field. It’s my continual dilemma. For now, though, I’ve accepted that using photo references scratches the itch to some degree. In fact, the sketch at top of post is from a photo I snapped at Ravenna ravine last summer. On a hot day, Roy, Mary Jean and I stayed cool in the ravine’s deep shade. On location, I had made my usual quick sketch to capture this unusual scene of a boardwalk that was built around a moss-covered glacial erratic. At the time, I wished I had been able to capture color and a better sense of scale. Working from a photo at my comfy desk, I could do that.

1/28/26 photo reference (Inktense Blocks, Neocolor II crayons)

The other two sketches shown here are from the same reference photos I used to sketch in monochrome. Above, from a neighborhood golden hour walk, is one I couldn’t have done on location even if I had tried, as the sun was dropping too quickly. Look how low the sun was – even the edge of the lawn is casting a shadow on the pavement. I concede: That’s one satisfaction I can’t get from sketching on location.

1/27/26 photo reference (Neocolor II crayons)

Gouache: Mind Blown Backward and Inside-Out

 

7/30/25 Elliott Bay beach (gouache in Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook)

After taking several colored pencil workshops with Sarah Bixler to learn her fascinating take on color temperature, I got brave and plunged into a totally new medium: gouache!

Sarah's workshop met at a strip of beach on Elliott Bay, where
I learned to balance my palette, sketchbook, water cup, and butt on a handy
but uncomfortable log. Only the five paints in my CMYK set are in the palette
(the rest are watercolors).

Oh, sure, I’ve dipped into pink gouache during cherry blossom season, and we’ve all used touches of white gouache for snow or highlights. But making an entire, full-on painting with nothing but gouache was completely new territory for me. And because I prefer to plunge into the deep end before sticking my toe in the water, I took Sarah’s plein air workshop so that I could struggle with all the usual challenges of being on location (on this day, it was heat, humidity and sitting on a log) while also learning a new medium. Yay for tough art love!

A color-mixing study in which we make an arrangement of 
squares and rectangles indicating the percentage of a
particular hue we might use in the composition. Without
trying to make the actual composition, we can see how the hues
might play against each other.

Although I’m certainly no pro at watercolors, I’ve used them enough to know that gouache is basically the opposite in every way. They both squeeze out of tubes to make you think they are similar, but their similarities end there. When watercolors are glazed, their transparency allows the previous colors to show through, resulting in optical mixing. Colored pencils, too, are transparent like watercolors, so I’m used to that kind of layering.

By contrast, gouache is opaque, so succeeding layers completely obscure whatever was underneath (definitely a benefit in many cases, but difficult to wrap my head around). Instead of saving out the white of the paper for the brightest highlights with watercolor, with gouache, you can simply paint the white on last!

The biggest head explosion (or implosion, perhaps, given the backwardness of my perception), however, was in the way shifting values can be achieved: If I’m using a watercolor that turns out to be more vibrant or darker than I want, the simplest way to lighten the hue is to dilute it with more water. With gouache, you don’t add water – you add white! Whaaat!!

Sarah at her demo easel and some classmates.

Even though I understood this in concept, it still took me many (perhaps habitual) dips into the water cup before I learned to dip into the white instead. Once I did, though, what a game changer! I found it much easier to shift the value of a hue one way or the other with the simple addition of white or the hue (or occasionally black). Although Sarah had given us a supply list with a fairly typical palette of basic colors, I chose to bring only five paints to the workshop: the cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white that came in the Holbein primary mixing set I had purchased a couple of years ago. With only the three CMY primaries plus white and black made the job of shifting hues and values much easier than with a full palette.

My painting is a bit of a mess, especially the pile of rocks in the foreground, but as a first painting in a new medium, I’d say it’s not a bad start. I was pleased by the range of muted hues I was able to mix with that basic CMY triad (it helped that I was already familiar with using the CMY triad with colored pencils). The result looks more cohesive than I would probably otherwise achieve.

Elliott Bay beach just below Olympic Sculpture Park

My biggest frustration was how much time it takes to mix the hues and values I’m looking for. Gouache dries so quickly, especially on a hot day, that I was constantly fighting with making the paint fluid enough to apply without adding so much water as to dilute the opacity. As with any wet medium, learning how to hit the right ratio of water to paint is critical to mastering gouache.

But never mind mastery. Sarah’s workshop has whetted my appetite, and I’m looking forward to more stumbling and fumbling with gouache. I might even concede that some studio practice would be helpful before I go full-on urban sketching with gouache.

Opportunities to be Grateful

5/30/16 inks, brush pen, colored pencils

When I was growing up, my family’s tradition was to use Memorial Day as an opportunity to remember not only those who died serving our country but also family members we’ve lost. I’ve continued that tradition each year on this weekend by visiting Sunset Hills Memorial Park, where my parents and sister are interred.

5/30/16 brush pen, white Gelly Roll pen

It’s been wet and blustery most of the holiday weekend (yesterday I had to stay in and paint the flowers I would bring to the cemetery), but today the sun came out. We happened to arrive just as the memorial service was beginning. Hundreds of flags (I sketched more of them a few years ago) waved against the achingly bright blue sky as each branch of the armed services was called out to be recognized. Later as I walked back to the car, I spotted a fountain, and I could still hear bagpipes playing “Amazing Grace” as I sketched it.

Knowing that “the mountain” would be out on this cloudless day, I walked up to Maple Leaf Park this afternoon (and met a plein air painter there who was painting – surprise! – the same thing). Just as I felt at the cemetery, sketching the view of Mt. Rainier made me grateful and joyful to be alive.

5/29/16 watercolor

5/30/16 watercolor

Daffies

3/27/16 colored pencils

My mother’s favorite flowers were daffodils and all their varieties, including tiny pale yellow jonquils that filled her garden in spring. Unlike she was, I’m not much of a gardener at all, but these little gems faithfully pop up year after year on their own, which helps to make them my favorite, too.

Happy Easter! I hope yours is drier than ours is.

Equinox

9/23/14 Van Gogh watercolors, Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook

It’s a sad day in September when rain finally keeps an urban sketcher indoors for the first time in literally months (according to KOMOnews.com’s weather blog, Seattle nearly broke a record from June 21 through Sept. 21 with an average high temperature of 79 degrees – the second hottest summer since 1945). I’m not complaining – it was an incredibly beautiful sketching summer – but it’s still sad to see it end.

At the Urban Sketching Symposium last month, I heard a lot of talk about going straight to watercolor with a sketch instead of making a line drawing first. Unfortunately, I missed Behzad Bagheri’s workshop and Kumi Matsukawa’s demo on the subject. But fortunately, I found a huge peach (yes, we still have fresh local peaches! Surely an outcome of all that sunshine) and a banana on the counter asking to be painted.

Technical note: I usually prefer white paper for watercolors and sketching in general. For two of these still lifes, I used my Stillman & Birn Delta book, which has a creamy ivory color. It might not be apparent in the scans, but I sure like the way the warm fruit hues came out on that Delta paper. The white Beta paper in the second still life gives the sketch a cooler tone. The same Van Gogh paints were used for all three.

9/23/14 Van Gogh watercolors, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

9/23/14 Van Gogh watercolors, Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook

All My Bags Are Packed. . .

8/21/14 Platinum Carbon ink, Van Gogh watercolor, Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook
(My faithful Rickshaw finally gets to travel with me.)

Well, not quite all, but my Rickshaw Zero bag is!

During the past two years that my purple Rickshaw has been my faithful everyday carry, I’ve always taken some other bag when I’ve traveled because the Rickshaw just isn’t big enough for all the additional essentials that travel requires. But taking an unfamiliar bag meant feeling disoriented – nothing was where I expected it to be (as if travel isn’t disorienting enough).

Not this time! My beloved Rickshaw is coming with me to Brazil, along with a simple tote for the rest – a sweet solution. As a result, the following are the only sketch-material-related travel prep tasks I had to do this week:

• I stitched up 10 signatures for the Stefano. Think that’s too many? I filled nine last year in Barcelona and Germany during a trip almost as long. (I’m putting the signatures – along with inconvenient items such as clothes – into my roller bag this afternoon; we’ll see if I have to leave a few of those 10 behind.) (Edited 3:15 p.m.: They all fit! I may have to check a bag on the flight home, though.)

• To avoid inky messes (like the one I got last month flying to L.A. because I forgot the lesson I learned two years ago), I filled my fountain pens and ink-filled waterbrushes completely. This seems counterintuitive – wouldn’t more ink in the reservoir allow for more leakage? But at high altitudes, air expands, pushing the ink out. If a reservoir is completely filled, there’s no air to expand, reducing the chance of leakage. That’s the theory, anyway. (If that solution happens to fail, I put potentially leaky pens and waterbrushes in a sealed plastic bag.)

• The supply of watercolor paints, inks and other materials that I carry every day should be sufficient for the duration of my trip, so I’m not taking spares (last year I brought several ink cartridges that I never used). The only exception is one spare cartridge of Platinum Carbon Black, because that’s probably difficult to find in Brazil.

That’s it! Travel prep is easy when I “travel” every day.

A Waterproof Dance with the Sailor

7/24/14 Platinum Carbon ink, Sailor pen, Van Gogh watercolor,
Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook

Notice anything different about this sketch? (Other than the sad fact that I’m sketching a still life in the middle of summer; it’s been raining since I got back from L.A. on Tuesday, a rude homecoming after all that sunshine, both in L.A. and here at home during the past several weeks.) Although it’s probably not obvious, I did the initial line drawing using my usual waterproof Platinum Carbon Black ink – but with a Sailor variable-line-width pen.

Although I’ve been dancing happily with the Sailor using water-soluble inks for well over a year, I haven’t ever seriously considered using it with waterproof ink. For one thing, I only draw with waterproof ink when I intend to paint the sketch with watercolor, and when I paint, I tend to want a consistent, neutral line that doesn’t call attention to itself. Another reason is that the Sailor’s plumbing and nib seem to be slightly more sensitive than my other favorites, the consistently smooth-flowing Pilot Metropolitan and Pilot Prera, so I’m wary that it might clog with waterproof ink.

Needing a kick in the head on this rainy, dreary day, I suddenly decided to challenge those assumptions: Who says I need a consistent, neutral line just because I’m going to paint a sketch? And why do I assume that the Sailor’s innards are more delicate? It has always flowed as smoothly as the Pilots . . . maybe I’m babying it too much.

Without further hesitation, I filled a Sailor up with Platinum Carbon. Any potential to clog will take a few weeks of use to test (stay tuned). But even with this one sketch, I already felt my sketching hand kickin’ up its heels (uh, disregard that contorted mixed metaphor) with the Sailor. I can’t explain it, and it may not be apparent at all in my actual line work, but the Sailor makes me draw differently – a little looser, a little more organic, a little more like the pen and hand are one unit. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Not bad for a pen that costs 16-and-a-half bucks (or less than half that when I buy it from J-Subculture, a recently discovered site where I can also get my favorite Kuretake waterbrushes for significantly less than Blick or JetPens).

Updated 8/18/14: It’s been three weeks since I started using Platinum Carbon Black in the Sailor Profit (which has an identical nib as the Sailor calligraphy pen), and it has behaved as well as my Sailor calligraphy pen does with water-soluble inks: smooth-flowing, no clogging, no false starts. I’m convinced that I’ve been overly protective by using only water-soluble inks with my Sailors -- they can take anything. I’m not sure I'm going to keep using the Profit, though -- the longer calligraphy pen has a better balance in my hand and just feels more comfortable.

Fruit with Grisaille

2/4/14 Platinum Carbon ink, India ink grisaille, Van Gogh watercolors,
Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook

In Steve Reddy’s workshop over the weekend, we applied varying dilutions of India ink to our drawings as a grisaille underpainting before glazing with watercolor. We put the diluted India ink in small jars, which I knew wouldn’t work for me in the field because I often sketch standing up. I decided I’d try putting diluted ink in a waterbrush to see if it could be applied that way, since that’s the only way I could see myself using it on location.

I didn’t have time to go out for a sketch today, but I had 20 minutes for a still life (that’s my kind of still life – unlike the ones I spent hours on over the weekend). As we did in class, I applied a light dilution of India ink with a waterbrush, allowing it to dry between applications (it dried quickly in my well-heated studio). The synthetic waterbrush fibers weren’t quite as easy to control as the sable brush I was using in the workshop, but I use that mediocre waterbrush 98 percent of the time in the field, so I’m used to it. I was actually pleased with the results from that mediocre but hardworking waterbrush!

The only thing I’m not sure about with this technique is that the watercolor hues change when applied over the India ink grisaille. I know I have difficulty getting the values right with watercolors alone, so if the values of a sketch “read” more accurately with grisaille, then maybe that’s a good thing. But maybe if I just got better at painting watercolor values more accurately, I wouldn’t need the grisaille.

Of course, “just get better at” is easier said than done!

Still Life S T U

11/26/13 Still life S T U. Platinum Carbon ink, Van Gogh watercolors, Stillman & Birn
Delta sketchbook

I had exactly a half-hour before I had to leave for an appointment. Did I have enough time for a still life? Not really, but I had all the objects ready to go, so I decided to treat it the same way I often treat urban sketches – draw and paint to the level of detail that fits the amount of time available. (Tip: Having the space heater on full blast dries paint quickly.) Twenty-eight minutes later, I was done: Still life S T U in my alphabetical series.

(The U stumped me for a while. I could have used an umbrella, but I wanted something that would fit on the same scale as the other two objects. Of course, “Urban Sketchers” was the first thing that came to mind, but how to put that into a still life. . . ? A quick look around my studio was all it took.)

Let’s see if the fruit is correctly identifiable this time. . .! :-)

Black Does the Work



2/13/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook

A great admirer of the work of Steve Reddy, I once asked the Seattle artist and intrepid urban sketcher what techniques he uses to achieve the beautiful tonal variations and spatial depth seen in his sketches. He told me he puts a dilution of waterproof ink into a waterbrush to apply tonal washes. Even when he paints the sketch later with watercolors, he still applies shading initially with the ink dilution. Quoting another artist (whose name I didn’t catch, unfortunately), he added that his technique is based on the principle, “Black does the work, but color takes the credit.”

 

Hearing about his technique, I went home and immediately filled a waterbrush with diluted Platinum Carbon Black ink. Although I carried the waterbrush around in my bag for a few weeks, I never used it in the field because I wasn’t sure what to do. That was several months ago.

2/13/13 Platinum Carbon Black ink, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Yesterday I was looking for something else when I came across the waterbrush still filled with diluted Platinum Carbon. I decided to give it a try with a couple of simple still lifes. (I also amused myself with the example of self-referential metasketching above – a bottle of Platinum Carbon Black and a Lamy pen sketched with Platinum Carbon Black in a Lamy pen.)

I put the diluted-ink waterbrush back into my bag. I’m going to start letting black do more of the work.
 

Tossing Out My Coloring Book

1/26/13 Winsor & Newton watercolor, Strathmore 140 lb. paper

Although I’ve been dabbling in watercolors since I first started sketching and went to a few drop-in classes back then, I hadn’t taken any formal lessons. After more than a year of winging it, I’m now taking a six-week course at North Seattle Community College with Susan Schneider to learn the (correct) basics of watercolor painting.

 

My uneducated watercolor “technique” (so to speak) so far has been the coloring book method: sketching an outline with waterproof ink and then coloring (mostly) inside the lines with paint. While other sketchers use this popular method to beautiful effect, my results have been mixed and generally mediocre.

 

In taking Susan’s class, my objective is to skip the pen or pencil outline and sketch directly with paint, going more for shapes and expression than for “coloring” as has been my habit. Happily, Susan has been very supportive of whatever style students want to pursue.

 

1/26/13 watercolor, Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook

With my previous method in the field, I’d used 16 Daniel Smith watercolor sticks in my portable mint tin sketch kit, which served me well. But Susan’s class supply list recommended Winsor & Newton artist-quality tube paints in only eight colors,* so I decided that this class is my opportunity to give time-honored WN paints a try as well as step up to the challenge of a limited palette.

 

Mint tin sketch kit with WN paints.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, my ultimate goal is to be able to make paint-only sketches out in the urban landscape. I’ve done a little of this kind of painting in my studio, but not in the field. Let’s call these two sketches from yesterday’s class my baseline. Maybe with indoor practice between now and June, I’ll be ready to take my paints outside by summer. (I’ve already made a second version of the mint tin kit with Winsor & Newton paints, so I’m ready to go! Hear that, Summer?)

* Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Sap Green, Viridian Green, French Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue.

Still Life With Basil and Olive Oil

11/25/12 custom-mixed brown ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn sketchbook

Guess what we’re having for dinner tonight?

 

(The best part about sketching one’s dinner is that, because the still life has to get into the roasting pan in 10 minutes, there’s no time to overwork the watercolor.)

Still Life with Rain

11/19/12 Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolor, S & B Beta 

In general, I’m not a huge fan of still lifes. Given a choice, I invariably opt for on-location sketching or even studio life drawing practice over sketching inanimate objects in my house. But today it rained so hard and continuously, accompanied by gusty high winds, that I hunkered down and couldn’t bear to go out, even to a coffee shop.

 

Fortunately, a mostly-fresh birthday bouquet from my spouse guy had enough color to keep me entertained. The first sketch, below, was a good opportunity to try a sample of Platinum Pigmented Sepia ink, one of several samples Kate gave me (thanks, Kate!). When I was shopping for brown ink samples a while back, the swatch shown online for this ink looked blah, so I skipped it. But in real life, it’s a pleasant, non-aggressive hue, and here’s what surprised me: it’s waterproof! I wasn’t necessarily looking for a waterproof brown ink – my interest was in finding one with a rich wash – but now that I’ve found this one, I’m thinking it would be a nice warm alternative to my usual Platinum Carbon Black. I especially like it on the ivory-colored Stillman & Birn Delta paper.

 

11/19/12 Platinum Pigmented Sepia ink, S & B Delta

The second still life, above, was drawn with my trusty Copic Multiliner SP pen, which I haven’t been using much since I got hooked on Lamy fountain pens. This time I sketched it on a bright white Stillman & Birn Beta page spread (again, thanks, Kate!), which has a cooler hue but maybe makes the colors pop a bit more.

 

OK, so still lifes have their place. But I’ve already got cabin fever.

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto Nos. 2 (Part 3) and 3

5/16/12, Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolor, Stillman & Birn sketchbook

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto Nos. 2 and 3: Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel. Our drawings are a record of time and place.

With a sense of urgency, I went back to Cloud City Coffee, this time with a mission: To sketch the Maple Leaf water tower behind its sign. Even though I’ve lived in the Maple Leaf neighborhood for nearly 25 years and have seen the tower nearly every day, it was the first time I closely examined the crisscrossed girders around it or the repeating pattern of the maple leaf motif.

After finishing the sketch, I came home and did a Google search to see if I could find out when the tower is slated to come down. According to the Maple Leaf neighborhood blog post dated Aug. 24, 2010, the city decided not to take it down after all because its antennas still generate revenue. I guess that shows how up to date I am on neighborhood news! (I make no claims to be a reportage sketcher.)

(This is one of a series of blog posts about how I have interpreted the Urban Sketchers manifesto.)

Product Reviews: Pentel Color Brush Pen and Kuretake Brush Writer

4/9/12, Pentel Color Brush, Hand Book

In my ongoing love affair with Japanese water-soluble brush pens, I’m currently experimenting with two more brands: Pentel Color Brush Pens and Kuretake Brush Writers.

Like the Akashiya Sai and Akashiya Thin Line pens I reviewed previously, both the Pentel and Kuretake pens have actual hairy brush tips, not formed felt tips. Unlike the others I reviewed previously, however, which are ready to use upon uncapping, both the Pentel and Kuretake brush pens have reservoirs of dye ink that must be punctured before first use. They are identical in this regard: A small ring between the reservoir half of the pen and the brush half is removed, and when the two parts are screwed back together, the reservoir is punctured, allowing ink to flow to the brush. Both pens have an area on the reservoir barrel that can be squeezed to force more ink into the brush, but I found that gravity alone usually kept a steady flow going while sketching and painting. (Use care when removing or replacing the caps on both of these pens – if you inadvertently squeeze the barrel while doing this, you may find yourself with ink on your lap!)

I should qualify “steady flow,” because I found that some colors of the Kuretake flowed more consistently than others. I have four colors, and the purple is practically a gusher, while the other three colors flow more consistently. (I have only one color of the Pentel, so I couldn’t make a comparison with this brand.)

If you’re familiar with Kuretake waterbrushes (also marketed in the U.S. as Niji waterbrushes), the design of the Kuretake Brush Writer will give you déjà vu. I wouldn’t be surprised if the brush tip is made of identical material. And although I haven’t tried this myself, I’m guessing that the ink reservoir, when empty (or emptied), can be refilled with water (or diluted ink) and the pen used just like a waterbrush.

One significant difference between the Akashiya pens reviewed previously and the Pentel and Kuretake brush pens reviewed here is that the latter are both refillable with ink cartridges. Dick Blick carries refills for the Pentel. When I asked JetPens.com whether refills were available for the Kuretake, I was told that they are, but JetPens does not carry them. However, they might consider offering them in the future if enough customers are interested. (Knowing that these pens are refillable makes me feel somewhat less guilty about the landfill I’m personally filling with all the disposable pens I’ve tossed in my lifetime.)

Enough about mechanics – let’s get to the good stuff. Both the Pentel and Kuretake brush tips have a relatively wide range of sensitivity for synthetic brushes. Both were designed for Asian calligraphers, so they are both capable of producing nice variations in thick and thin lines, but I was able to get a narrower line with the Pentel.

The biggest difference between these two competing products is the way the ink interacts with various paper types. I tried them on three: a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook (100 lb.), a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook (180 lb.), and a Global Art Materials Hand Book (a somewhat toothy, lightweight paper that usually takes washes of water-soluble pens and pencils well).

On the heavyweight Delta paper, both inks performed nicely, as I expected (since every medium I’ve tried on the Delta paper looks beautiful). Colors were rich, and washes were even (well, as even as I could make them… the variable of the operator is always present). But on the Alpha and Hand Book papers, the Pentel ink feathered and looked grainy, while the Kuretake ink looked the same as it did on the heavier paper.

Pentel on Hand Book

Pentel on S & B Delta

Another important difference is the color range. The Pentel range is what I would call “basic” – three each of blues and greens, only one red – 18 total. The 24-color Kuretake range includes five each of greens and blues, three reds, two yellows and several bright hues (that I would trade in for a few more earthy tones if I could).

One probably minor difference: The Pentel is packaged for western markets, so the packaging and insert are in English. Alas, the Kuretake packaging information is in Japanese only (although the pen itself has a band around it with basic operational instructions in English). From the illustrations, I’m guessing that I’m missing only more detailed operational instructions, or perhaps care information, but I also see some “caution” symbols, so who knows what vital bits I’ll never read?

(When I was in elementary school, many of my Japanese American peers were “forced” by their parents to attend Japanese language school so that they would learn the language of their ancestors. Back then, I was always grateful that my parents didn’t make me give up my Saturdays that way, and those peers considered me lucky. As an adult, I have deeply regretted my Japanese illiteracy, especially in regard to reading packaging information on art materials.)

Kuretake on Hand Book

Kuretake on Delta

Overall, I’d say the Kuretake Brush Writer has a slight edge over the Pentel Color Brush, mainly because of the Pentel’s feathering on lighter-weight papers and its narrower color range. But the thinner brush tip on the Pentel is a strong point in its favor. For my money, though, I think both the Akashiya Sai and Akashiya Thin Line pens make a more variable brush line than either the Pentel or the Kuretake.

Oct. 8, 2012, addendum: If you are traveling to high altitudes, leave these reservoir-type brush pens at home! Or at least don't open a pen cap over your sketchbook. I learned this lesson the hard way.